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An Archaeological Guide to Viking Men's Clothing

What Is This Pamphlet, Anyway?

Only by playing the part of a Viking from a specific time and
place can one bring to the status of an SCA Viking
its appropriate glory and respect. It is a sad fact that no one
really respects generic Vikings. But hang a date
and a locale on your persona, and be able to demonstrate it in
your choice of clothing, and poof!
Instant respect! This pamphlet is designed to help you design
Viking clothing ensembles that look like they come
from a particular time and/or place. By dint of assiduous
documenting, it is also designed to help guide those who
are interested in further research. It is not intended
to instruct the reader in garment construction
beyond some suggestions for seam placements. For help with
construction, take this pamphlet to your local
clothing maker, point out the drawings, and beg for help; who
knows, perhaps you'll start a fashion trend!

The finds that are considered in this paper come from several
times and locations in the Viking world. They are
organized by article of clothing: trousers, stockings,
undertunic, overtunic, coat, cloak, and accessories. Some
information on appropriate trimmings is included, and regional
and historical differences, if discernible, have been
highlighted. It is impossible in this limited work to address
all the issues, such as textile and color choice, that
must be taken up in a serious attempt to construct a Viking
ensemble; much of that material is available
elsewhere, so only a few passing suggestions for textile and
color choices are included in this work.

Evidence for Men's Clothing in the Viking Age

Statistically, fewer finds of known clothing-related textiles
exist for Viking men than for Viking women. This is largely
because textiles are most often preserved by proximity to
metal (in jewellery or other grave goods) or tannin (from wood)
in a protected inhumation (ground burial); but
many men in the pagan Viking Age were cremated rather than
buried. Inhumation customs also seem to have differed somewhat
for men and women. Women were buried wearing a great deal of
their jewellery, including metal brooches and pins. This meant
that any textiles in the immediate area of a brooch or pin, such
as an undergarment or overgarment, had a chance of
surviving. Men, on the other hand, required fewer pieces of
jewellery to hold together their garments than women did, which
meant that less garment metal went into a man's grave than into a
woman's. The man's garment which did require jewellery, the
cloak, was often lain in the grave near, rather than on, the
body. This meant that the preservation action of the jewellery
could only work on the nearby cloak rather than on all the layers
of clothing not in contact with the cloak. Sometimes other metal
grave goods preserve bits of textiles associated with the grave
that may have nothing to do with the garments themselves, such as
the sails in a ship burial, the linen wrapping around a
swordhilt, a tapestry-woven pillow cover, or a coarse blanket
used to cover the burial.

Because of the difficulties associated with reconstructing
men's
clothing in the Viking Age, we are forced to take
and struggle to integrate whatever information we can scrape
together. Because of the library difficulties of
acquiring materials written in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and
Icelandic, we are often limited to works in
English. Accordingly, much of the information presented here
comes from single, elaborate inhumations such
as the Mammen oak cist burial (Denmark) and the Evebø
stone cist burial (Norway), both of which have
excited international interest leading to write-ups in English.
The Viking period at various sites in England,
Scotland, and Ireland is also fairly well-covered by publications
in English. Many secondary works in English
also address the larger picture of Viking Age textiles in such
specialized locations as Denmark and York, England.
Materials on Icelandic sites are woefully sparse, especially on
this continent, so the brave Icelanders will
unfortunately have to remain outside the scope of this work for
now. However, some more scholarly series of
works are available in German on such urban sites as Hedeby
(Denmark) and Birka (Sweden); these are
responsible for a much broader and more complete picture of men's
garb in the period, if you can locate them and
can read German. Some translations from works in German by Inga
Hägg have been made accessible to
me through the generosity of Mistress Marieke van de Dal,
sine qua non, ne plus ultra,
whom I thank profusely.

This pamphlet considers some of the finds from Sweden (Birka),
Norway (Evebø), Denmark (Mammen,
Hedeby), England (Jorvík, Repton), the Orkneys, and
Ireland (Dublin). (Other finds may be included in
future incarnations of this work; stay tuned.) Although the
Evebø burial is technically a "Migration Era,"
or pre-Viking, find, dating to the fifth century, the author
finds it impossible to resist including information on
a man who was buried in one outfit containing not only
multicoloured plaid pants but also a plaid cloak of a
different design and three different kinds of intricately
patterned tablet-weaving. The sixth-century Sutton Hoo
find is included occasionally for comparison purposes because the
evidence suggests that the site reflects Swedish
ancestry and burial habits.

From the Bronze Age onward, it seems that the basics of men's
clothing in Scandinavia changed little, consisting
of trousers, tunics, coats, and cloaks. While the materials
composing the garments changed from hide and leather
to wool and, ultimately, linen, the cut changed more slowly, if
at all. Decoration, on the other hand, seems to have
changed quite a bit in the several centuries between Evebø
and New Birka.

Aesthetics

Many textiles in the Viking Age were made of worsted wool in
twill patterns. These wools were carefully woven,
supple, attractively textured, and often dyed in bright colors.
It's a very poor Viking indeed--one who not only
didn't have an armring to his name but also didn't have a decent
weaver in the entire extended family!--who
would have had to make do with the horrible, scratchy, coarse
wools we SCA Vikings are led to believe are the
only ones "period for Vikings." Oddly enough, as time went on
and the warp-weighted loom was supplanted by
the horizontal loom beginning near the end of the tenth century,
later period Viking wool fabrics became coarser,
fuzzier, and thicker than earlier period ones. This is because
the process of extensive fulling and napping was
reintroduced to the textile industry, and that's the tip of a
textile production history iceberg that you can run up
against some other time. For now, suffice it to say that a great
many Viking Age wool garments, particularly the
fancy ones, were of fine, soft, bright, and well-made wool
fabrics.

Certain areas also had ready access to linen, such as England,
which produced it, and Sweden, which imported
it; as fragile and rare as linen remains are, there is
nevertheless much more archaeological evidence for the use
of linen in those areas. Silk was available all over the Viking
world by the ninth century, and it was liberally
used by some of the people buried at Birka in the mid- to
late-tenth century. Although there is no evidence of
cotton yet from Viking graves, it is known that in the tenth
century the Byzantine army issued a cotton padding
garment, the bambakion, as part of its outfit (Teall
1977, 204). Varangians, at the very least, would
likely have experienced this garment.

Some fabrics, such as linen and some naturally-pigmented
wools,
were most often used undyed. Many wools,
however, were dyed in attractive colors, and there are a few
examples of woad- or madder-dyed linens. The most
common colors which have been found in dye analyses of Viking Age
fabrics are red, mostly from madder; blue,
from woad; yellow, from weld and an unidentified yellow dye,
possibly either broom or a tannin-based dye such
as onion skins; purples and violets, from lichens or from
overdyeing with some combination of
lichens/madder/woad; and greens, from overdyeing with an
unidentified yellow dye plus woad (Walton 1988, 17-
18). Some evidence of brown from walnut shells has also been
found, as well as one or two pieces that were
intentionally dyed very dark brownish-black with walnut shells
and iron (Hägg 1984, 289).

The chemical evidence seems to point to a preponderance of
particular colors appearing in particular areas: reds
in the Danelaw, purples in Ireland, and blues and greens in
Scandinavia proper (Walton 1988, 18). Although it
is carefully hedged, there is a hypothesis in the scientific
world that this might possibly reflect regional color
preferences rather than archaeochemical factors; feel free to use
this Viking heraldry if you like the idea. At any
rate, it is helpful to make friends with a natural dyer and find
out more about the appearance of the colors
produced from these dyestuffs. They'll be gratified and
encouraged by your interest in their art form, and you'll
learn a lot about the Viking aesthetic.

Trousers

Iconographic evidence in such forms as the Gotlandic picture
stones and the Oseberg tapestry suggests that the
Vikings wore at least two types of leg coverings: a wide,
knee-length, baggy type and a narrow, full-length, more
fitted type. Unfortunately, not many finds are clearly
identifiable as trousers, and in most cases the cut of the
garment is not obvious from the remains. That said, on to the
evidence.

Several finds of trousers dating to the Migration Era (between
the fall of Rome and the official Viking Age) serve
to demonstrate that Scandinavian use of trousers in at least the
narrow form goes back a fairly long way. The
trousers found more or less intact at Thorsbjerg Mose in Denmark
(Hald 1980, 329), with their sophisticated
Migration Era cut requiring three separate pieces for the crotch
gusset alone, by themselves can serve to disprove
any claims that early period garments are simple and untailored.
At the ends of the legs, the Thorsbjerg trousers
extended into foot coverings, just like children's pajamas.

The remains of a Migration Era man buried in a mound at
Evebø farm in Gloppen, western Norway,
provide proof that multicolored plaid was not unknown in the
Scandinavian world. This man wore trousers in
a pattern of 15x15cm plaid, in at least three colors--red, green,
and blue (Magnus 1982, 69). Because the wool
from which the trousers were made is not creased or pleated, it
is more likely that these trousers too were of the
narrow variety.

The tenth-century caulking rags excavated from Hedeby harbor
yielded some garment fragments believed to be
the remnants of the crotch of a pair of baggy men's trousers,
also known as "knickers," "plus fours," or
Pumphose. (In the East Kingdom these are also widely
known as "balloon" or "Viking funny" pants.)
The fragments from Hedeby were of fine wool tabby in a crepe
weave. They suggest that the pair of trousers were
of two colors: some of the fragments are dyed yellowish, others
red. The similarity between the Hedeby
fragments and the crotch cut of the Thorsbjerg trousers is what
allows for their identification as trousers
(Hägg 1984, 31-2). Unfortunately, not much can be deduced
about the overall shape of these pants from
the fragments that remain.

The remains of one pair of trousers found at Birka were
probably
of the short and baggy variety. The trousers
were of linen (or lined with linen) with little metal eyes set
into their lower edges; the stockings were wool, with
little hooks sewn onto them. The stockings were hooked to the
lower edges of the trousers just below the knees.
These little hooks used to connect the trousers and stockings,
called "garter hooks" in most of the literature, show
up all over Northern Europe in early period, from Birka to
Winchester (Owen-Crocker 1986, 93) and even in
Jorvík (Hall 1984, 121); they seem to have been most
consistently used in Saxon areas. It is not always
certain how they were used, however; often they were used not on
trousers but on the garters that cinched them.
This undisturbed and unusual example of their use is one of the
things that makes the Birka find so valuable.

Undertunics or Smocks

A fair amount of information is available on the cut of the
smock
layer during the Viking Age. Most of the smocks
found have been of wool, although many women's smocks made of
linen were found at Birka. It is likely that
smocks in the Danelaw and Ireland could have been made of linen.
Many fragments of linen garments have been
found at ninth- and tenth-century Jorvík, most with
flat-felled seams which, as Penelope Walton says, are
suitable for undergarments (Walton 1989, 408).

The Migration Era jarl at Evebø wore two tunics, one
over
the other. His knee-length, red wool undertunic
was trimmed at neck, wrists, and hem with complex wool
tablet-weaving patterned with beasts of various
descriptions in yellow, red, and black (Magnus 1982, 68-69). The
cuffs were secured with bronze wrist clasps, a
feature not uncommon to early Anglian graves in the same period
(Crowfoot 1952, 91). Unfortunately, not enough
of his tunic survives for us to be able to reconstruct its
cut.

The smocks worn at Hedeby seem to be of two basic types. Both
types share the elements of rounded neckline,
rounded armholes for set-in sleeves, and separate front and back
panels sewn together at the shoulders
(Hägg 1984, 171). They differ in the construction of their
side-seams: one type has narrow, slit sides, and
the other has wider construction with inserted gores for fullness
at the hem. Most were wool, and some were dyed
(Hägg 1984, 289). Sleeves tapered in width at the lower
arm, so that they fit fairly snugly at the wrists,
and they could also be cut in more than one piece to achieve a
more complicated taper.

There is less to go on with the Birka smocks, but a few facts
are
evident. Some of the Birka smocks seem to have
had keyhole necklines rather than rounded ones. The front and
back panels were cut in one piece and not sewn
together with shoulder seams (Hägg 1974, 108). This
construction makes them much closer in design to
the current SCA conception of the T-tunic than the Hedeby smocks
are; however, judging from earlier
Scandinavian finds of tunics, they probably had separate sleeves
sewn to the body of the smock.

Overtunics

In general, it is probably safe to extrapolate from the
information available on smocks in order to get some idea
of how tunics and coats could have been cut in the same times and
places. As is the case with the
smock/undertunic, both wool and linen overtunics are represented
in the finds.

The Evebø jarl's overtunic was wool, possibly blue,
decorated at the neck with tablet-woven wool bands
patterned with animals in two colors. Somewhere on this tunic
some silver clasps were attached, but, due to the
slightly irregular procedures followed in this excavation, it is
unknown whether they were cuff clasps or clasps
for front of the tunic (Magnus 1982, 68). Because the red
undertunic was so elaborate, with its tablet-woven
trims, the blue overtunic may not have been an overtunic (i.e., a
pullover garment) at all but rather a coat (i.e.,
something that opens down the front): then the silver clasps
would have been used to clasp it together on the
chest.

At Jorvík in the ninth and tenth centuries, strips of
plain tabby-woven silk in bright colours were used
to edge overgarments (Walton 1989, 369), much the same way as one
might use bias tape today except that the
silk was cut along the grain, not diagonally across it. There is
ample evidence for usage of figured silk samite
strips as edgings at Viking Age Dublin (Pritchard 1988, 158).
The Mammen grave revealed a similar use of
samite strips (Hald 1980, 110-111). The fashion is also
represented at ninth- and tenth-century Birka, where
several overtunics, both men's and women's, were ornamented with
strips of this type of samite plus, in several
cases, metal-brocaded tablet-woven bands on the chest and arm
areas.

Grave 735 at Birka, dating to the mid-tenth century, revealed
a
unique ornamental overlay in a combination of
samite and many strips of silver-brocaded tablet weaving (Geijer
1938, 165-6). The overlay consisted of eight
parallel bands sewn horizontally on a rectangle of silk. This
particular man's grave is the find which has inspired
drawings of men in Rus riding coats in many Viking picture books,
including Almgren and the cover of the Osprey
Elite Series book on the Vikings. However, as is often the case
in secondary works, the illustrators got it all
wrong. The man buried in Grave 735 was not wearing a
buttoned coat; he was wearing a closed-front
overtunic of bluish-green wool with the elaborate overlay
appliquéed on the chest (Geijer 1938, 166). Although
the shape of the finished overlay is not entirely clear from the
reconstruction, Hägg suggests that additional
strips of silk and tablet weaving ran up his arms (Hägg
1986, 69) as well as around the arms of the tunic.

Another tenth-century Birka overtunic was of linen decorated
with
long vertical strips of brocaded tablet-weaving
from shoulders to calves (Hägg 1986, 69), which must have
looked somewhat like Byzantine
clavii. It was also trimmed with Chinese self-patterned
damask silk (Geijer 1983, 86); at the time the
man was buried, the silk would have been several hundred years
old!

Coats

There are two basic manifestations of the coat layer in Viking
archaeological contexts. For ease of differentiation
I call them the "jacket" and the "coat." The jacket wraps around
without a fastening device, while the coat is
buttoned. It is possible that they simply represent variations of
the same garment; they do not appear to have
been worn together.

The jacket is found in several spots in the Viking world, and
it
seems to have a very old tradition. An early
defining example of the type is the human figures depicted on the
Sutton Hoo helmet, who are dressed in what
look like bathrobes. This garment consisted of a short tunic
open all down the front with diagonal, overlapping
flaps. There is supporting evidence from Saxon graves in both
Europe and England for a clothing layer of this
type, ornamented on the lapel and down the front with
gold-brocaded tablet weaving. It is thought that the
garment may have had some military or ritual significance
(Owen-Crocker 1986, 114-115).

The jacket fragments found at Hedeby were made of plain 2/2
twill. The complete garment is thought to have
been hip-length and trimmed with fake fur made of wool along the
hem and down the front edges (Hägg
1984, 204).

The coat, also known as the "caftan" or "Rus riding coat," may
have been an explicitly eastern (Swedish/Rus)
phenomenon. We have solid evidence of it only at Birka in the
ninth and tenth centuries. It is a long coatlike
overgarment, buttoned from neck to waist and decorated with
specialized and elaborate metal trimmings. The
remains of five such coats were found, each with a row of cast
metal shank-buttons; several other coats were
identified which, while they had the right sort of elaborate
trimmings, had no associated buttons. Wood or bone
buttons, however, would leave little or no trace in a burial, and
it is likely that these coats were also buttoned
(Hägg 1986, 68). It is thought that this garment was
borrowed or adapted from the Byzantine
skaramangion, which was the standard day garment for the
Emperor and his court (Geijer 1983, 99).

Our old friend, the man in the coat on the cover of the Osprey
Elite book, makes another appearance here to warn
you about misunderstanding the coat layer at Birka. The trimmed
lapel/collar this man is wearing is an artist's
misinterpretation of the Reverskragen, or lapel, which
was found in some of the other graves at Birka.
The Reverskragen probably belongs on a jacket, not a
coat. Also, the archaeological evidence from
Birka does not support the conclusion that the coat was
ornamented with crosswise bands on the chest, as many
illustrators depict it: the overlays are found in one piece on
the breast, which could not happen if the garment
they decorated were a coat that buttoned. However, coats were
frequently decorated with strips of metal
knotwork mounted on strips of silk samite; tiny metal studs held
the silk to the garment (Hägg 1986, 57).

Cloaks

The basic elements of the Viking cloak ensemble are a
rectangular
cloak and a cloakpin. Cloakpins can be of the
pennannular type or of the ring-headed pin type. Cloaks come in a
variety of weights and weaves, from
lightweight patterned twills to the heavy napped "fake-fur" types
known as rogvarfelðr.

The Evebø jarl was wrapped in an elaborate lightweight
rectangular cloak with fringed edges. It was red
plaid with blue and yellow stripes in a 12x12cm repeat. At the
edges were tablet-woven bands of either blue or
green with beasts in either yellow or red (Magnus 1982, 68). No
cloakpin was found.

Fragments of red and undyed tufted wool, possibly from
fake-fur
cloaks, were found at Jorvík (Walton
1989, 319). Also, Grave 750 at Birka revealed the remnants of a
heavy cloak with blue and red pile as long as
a thumb (Geijer 1938, 132).

The wool cloak found in the Mammen burial included fancy
embroidery in two colors of stem stitching. The motifs
included two different versions of repeating human faces and
hands in a variation of the "gripping beast" style,
as well as a scrolling leafy motif that looks very Saxon (Hald
1980, 104-5). The cloak was also strewn with gold
foil paillettes or spangles (Hald 1980, 102).

The men's burials at Birka included cloaks worn to the grave
or
deposited near the body. These cloaks were most
frequently thick, heavy blue ones (Hägg 1986, 68) worn
pinned at either the shoulder or the hip. Several
burials included a cloak deposited near the body. Of the five
men's burials dating securely to the ninth century,
all wore cloakpins at the shoulder (Hägg 1986, 66). Several
cloaks from the tenth century were found
pinned at the hip rather than the shoulder, and some were
deposited next to the body instead. Hägg thinks
that the practice of burying the cloak elsewhere in the grave
than on the body might have arisen because clothing
the body in the cloak would obscure the man's burial finery worn
underneath it (Hägg 1986, 68). However,
this hypothesis assumes that Birkan finery in the tenth century
would have had to be somewhat more glitzy than
in the ninth, which is not necessarily the case. Additionally,
this practice is not unknown in earlier times: the
Sutton Hoo burial also included a cloak deposited separately.

Other Garments

Indications of other garments in use during this period are
few
and far between, but they do exist. The caulking
rags from Hedeby included some remnants thought to be a man's
vest. They were made of thick, napped wool;
the vest would have been hip-length and fitted fairly close to
the body (Hägg 1986, 204).

Cross-gartering in the Frankish and Saxon sense is not
generally
believed to have been practiced in Viking dress.
However, strips of fabric widely agreed to be leg-wrappers have
turned up in various locations around the Viking
world. At Hedeby several strips were found which had been woven
to a 10cm width (i.e., not cut out of a wider
fabric); they were woven in various twill techniques, with a
purple herringbone twill as the finest example.
Similar strips have also been found at many north European sites
(Hägg 1986, 159-60). These leg-wrappers
would have been worn by spirally wrapping the strip around the
calf starting just below the kneecap and finishing
at the ankle, where the excess can be tucked into a shoe.

Accessories

Hats and Headwear

At Birka three classes of headwear have been identified. At
least two types definitely correlate to a specific other
garment: the Types A and B hats are found in graves where the
coat, whether with or without metal buttons,
is also found. Type A, found in both ninth and tenth centuries,
is a peaked hat, at least partly made of silk, with
either metal knotwork running up the center front of the peak or
a silver, funnel-shaped ornament at the top of
the peak and silver mesh balls dangling from the pointed end.
Type B Birka is a more sedate tenth-century
innovation also worn with the coat; it seems to be a
closer-fitting, round low wool cap decorated around the
circumference of the head with one or more strips of metal
knotwork or braided spiral wire. A relationship
between the hat and coat is frequently emphasized by the use of
similar knotted trim to decorate both the hat and
the coat. Type C headwear at Birka consists of a metal-brocaded,
tablet-woven fillet or headband--perhaps the
hlað mentioned in the sagas (Hägg 1986, 70).
Of all three styles, Type C is the only one
that appears in graves without the coat layer.

A really unusual piece of headwear was found with the Mammen
burial. It has been reconstructed as a padded
circlet of tabby silk decorated with brocaded tablet-weaving.
Rising from the circlet are two triangular silk
"pennons," with gold-wire mesh in the center of each. The
headwear also has slivers of whalebone in it, probably
to help it stand up straight (Hald 1980, 106-108). It might have
looked somewhat like a bishop's mitre in
silhouette. This burial also yielded bracelets of brocaded
tablet-weaving on a ground of padded silk (Hald 1980,
106), possibly also in imitation of ecclesiastical garb.

In the Orkney Islands off Scotland a complete wool hood was
found
which has been tentatively dated to the Viking
Age. Its one-piece cut it is more simple than the hoods of the
Middle Ages; the hood section is squarish with no
tail, and the cowl is small and conical. It was made of
herringbone twill trimmed with deep bands of textured
tablet-weaving in two colors, and it had twisted fringing a foot
long (Henshall 1954, 10).

Belts

While the leather itself may not have survived, there is
plenty
of evidence for metal harness-mounts on leather
straps in Viking Age burials. Similarly, belt buckles,
strap-ends, and belt-slides are also common finds in Viking
men's graves, even if the leather upon which they were mounted
has disintegrated. Viking Age belt buckles do
not appear to have been as elaborate as the Sutton Hoo buckle or
the other famous early Saxon buckles. Most
were simple bronze ovals with a protruding tongue and a flat
plate to rivet to the leather; they would not look
particularly out of place on a modern belt. Some buckles were
carved of bone (Waterman 1959, 91).

Various types of belts were found at Birka. Some leather
belts
were mounted all along their length with wide
flat metal plaques; the one in Grave 1074 had two hanging ends,
also with mounts (Geijer 1938, Taf. 40). These
belts were worn mostly by the men who had cast-metal buttons on
their coats. A couple of elegant belts found
at Birka were made out of silk samite decorated with a hanging
fringe of silver-wire knotwork. Again, they seem
to have been worn by some of the men buried wearing the coats
with metal buttons. Since only fragments
survive, it is difficult to know what the completed appearance of
such a belt would have been; they seem to have
been about 6cm wide, with knotwork on the short edge (Geijer
1938, Taf. 28). Perhaps the belt was tied at the
waist and the two ends hung loosely; the knotted edging may have
functioned in place of strap-ends, weighing
down only on the hanging ends of the belt. Remnants of belts
were not found in graves of men who wore
overtunics at Birka (Hägg 1986, 69); it is impossible to
know whether these men did wear belts, or from
what materials they might have been made.

Shoes

Both "soled" shoes (made with separate soles stitched to the
uppers) and "hide" shoes (upper and sole cut in one
piece and then stitched to itself) were known in the Viking Age.
Most shoes were either half-boots or ankle shoes;
some were slip-ons, some tied with leather lacing, and some used
lappets with cylindrical leather buttons. A few
examples of half-boots exist from Hedeby close by means of three
wide lappets (Groenman-van Waateringe 1984,
Abb. 39). Goatskin was often used for shoes, as was deerskin,
calf, sheep, and cowhide.

Personal Ornamentation

According to Gräslund, Viking men did not commonly wear
neck
ornaments (Roesdahl and Wilson 1992, 191).
I do not think she means to exclude the famous twisted neckrings
that occur in so many Viking hoards; I think
she means the elaborate necklaces, composed of many different
kinds of beads and pendants, that women in this
period wore. Amulets, of course, are a different matter
altogether. Thor's hammers, for instance, are found all
over the Viking world. They must have been worn even on raids:
one of the Viking warriors buried at Repton,
Derbyshire, a casualty of the campaign of 873/4, wore a simple
silver Thor's hammer between two unmatched
glass beads around his neck (Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle
1992, 49).

Bibliography

This book has much to recommend it, but its
reconstructions of men's garments are 25 years behind
the times and even misunderstand much of the material that was
available when the book was written! The man wearing the
cruciform headband and the little scarf with the stag on it is
based on misinterpretations of factual evidence from Birka.
Don't make the mistake of basing your garb on this
fellow.

Preliminary write-up on the ninth-century Viking
site at Repton, Derbyshire, England, which is the first Viking
burial site in England to be excavated using modern techniques.
Not a lot on dress here, but fascinating from the historical
perspective.

Good, digested, English version of Birka III. Skims
over all the types of garmet-related finds from Birka. Great
photo of some Viking macramé in situ, some diagrams of the
patterns on tablet-woven metallic trims, and brief discussion of
the unusual embroidered and twisted wire trims.

Write-ups on the garment pieces used as caulking
that were discovered in Hedeby harbor. Distinguished by careful
analysis of weaves, suggested reconstructions of cuts, and useful
information about sewing stitches and techniques. Lots of good
photos and diagrams for those who don't read German.

A modern re-analysis of dress at Birka, building on
the work of Geijer but also incorporating microstratigraphic work
on some of the preserved lumps of textiles. Quite valuable:
confirms or refutes many of the major assumptions about clothing
in the period, and even offers fledgling theories of the
evolution of fashion.

In addition to write-ups on a huge variety of finds
of textiles from the Bronze Age through the
medieval period, this book contains a good diagram of the
Thorsbjerg pants pattern. Good drawings and a few
very good photos.

A good, concise book on Vikings from the military
standpoint, with several reasonable colour drawings. The most
undocumentable features of these plates are the
cross-gartering--a Frankish and Saxon style--and the trimmings on
the bottoms of tunics--only found at Evebø so far.
Although it's nice they included one, the drawing of women's
garments is pretty bad.

Photos and line drawings of some of the finds of
everyday objects from various levels of the York dig, including a
tenth-century spur, the Coppergate helm, and several Viking
artifacts.

Henshall, Audrey S. 1954. "Early Textiles Found in Scotland,"
Part I. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland 86, pp. 1-29.

A brief catalogue of some SCA period Scottish
textiles, Part I lists the indigenous rather than the
imported textiles. Good line drawings and a photo of the hood,
which may well be Viking Age in origin.

Assembles linguistic, iconographic, and
archaeological information on men's and women's clothing
in England from the period of the Saxon invasion to the Norman
invasion. Not without its flaws, but the best one-book version
out there; good footnotes and bibliography. Recently issued in
paperback.

A very good general history book distinguished by
reproductions of the drawings made of the Mammen embroideries
when they were excavated in the nineteenth century.

Roesdahl, Else, and Wilson, David M. 1992. From Viking
to Crusader. New York: Rizzoli International
Publications Ltd.

This is the catalogue of the 1992-1993 exhibition
presently touring Europe, the largest exhibition of Viking Age
artifacts ever mounted. Some of the photos and exhibits are
being reported and published for the first time in this book. A
few of the the write-ups are not in line with current thinking,
and the two-page article on dress has many serious inaccuracies,
including the "reconstruction" of the Mammen outfit on page 193
that has ignored such elementary information provided by the
original find as which embroideries were in proximity to others!
Still, on grounds other than that of garb documentation, it's
well worth the $65 it costs, and it's still in print as of
February 1993.

A short chapter on Byzantine economics and supplies,
based on several military treatises from the period. De
Obsidione Toleranda, the actual source for the information
on the bambakion, is not available in English, as nearly
as I can tell; this mention of the bambakion in English
is therefore rather valuable.

Walton, Penelope. 1988. "Dyes of the Viking Age: A Summary
of Recent Work," in Dyes in History and Archaeology
7, pp. 14-19.

Although kind of technical, the best few-page
summary out there. Contains information on spectrochemical
analysis as well as botanical information for various Viking Age
dyes.

Walton, Penelope. 1989. Textiles, Cordage and Fiber from
16-22 Coppergate. The Archaeology of York, Vol. 17:
The Small Finds, Fascicule 5. Dorchester: The Council for
British Archaeology and The Dorset Press.

Careful, detailed archaeological analysis of the
textiles found from the late ninth- through early
eleventh-century period of the Anglo-Scandinavian site of
Jorvík. Lots of very solid information on the fibers,
weaves, colors and construction stitches used there, and on
textile production generally.

The colour drawings of Viking garments share the
flaws of Heath's book: cross-gartering and too much trim on the
bottom of tunics. Still, not a bad source for a good, rapid,
overall idea of men's garments.

This page was created on 10 October 1996 and last updated on
4 February 1999.